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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27193291">Let Us Eat Cake</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura'>misura</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Half Bad Trilogy - Sally Green</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, POV First Person, Spoilers, Tooth-Rotting Fluff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:29:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,551</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27193291</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't like sweet things."</p><p>Gabriel bats his eyelashes at me. "But I'm a sweet thing, and you like me, don't you?"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gabriel Boutin/Nathan Byrn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Let Us Eat Cake</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"So I guess this means we're married," Gabriel says, holding up his hand so that the sunlight reflects off of my father's ring.</p><p>I scowl, though I'm surprised a part of me kind of likes that idea. I don't need Gabriel to be married to me to know that all those times he told me that he'd stay with me forever, he meant it.</p><p>"That's not what it means at all."</p><p>"Well, it was a very small and private ceremony," he allows, grinning. I want to kiss him until he stops grinning, even if that's impossible and anyway, I don't really want Gabriel to stop looking as happy as he does right now. "There wasn't even cake."</p><p>From the way he says it, I can tell he's just gotten an idea. Mind-reading isn't one of my Gifts, but I'm still pretty sure Gabriel's idea involves cake.</p><p>I scowl a bit more. "We're not married." My parents never got married - not to each other, that is.</p><p>"There's a small oven in the cabin," Gabriel says. "And I'm sure we've got most of the ingredients I need. I could make it work. Think about it, Nathan. Delicious cake, fresh-baked."</p><p>I'm sure he could make it work. Gabriel's inventive like that. "I don't like sweet things."</p><p>Gabriel bats his eyelashes at me. "But I'm a sweet thing, and you like me, don't you?"</p><p>"More like an impossible thing," I say. I make it sound like an insult, like I'm teasing him back a bit in a grumpy sort of way, but deep down inside, I totally mean it. I just don't mean it as an insult.</p><p>Gabriel is an impossible thing. A bright spot in a world full of darkness. A positive in a sea of negatives.</p><p>He's also going to spend the afternoon making a cake, whether I like it or not.</p><p>I tell myself I don't. I've gotten very good at lying to myself. I've had a lot of practice.</p><p> </p><p>"Sugar. Butter. Eggs. Flour." Gabriel ticks ingredients off a mental list. "See? It's like destiny."</p><p>I'm pretty sure we didn't have any eggs or butter yesterday, but there's a couple of cuts around the cabin, and who am I to spoil this for him?</p><p>"Destiny wants you to have cake?" I guess it beats destiny wanting you to kill your father and eat his heart. In the end, of course, it was what my father wanted, too.</p><p>"Destiny and I are very good friends. Friends want each other to have nice things."</p><p>"Should I be jealous?" I ask. I try to make it sound like a joke but I end up sounding sullen.</p><p>"Of my many amazing talents, exquisite good looks and charming personality? Probably," Gabriel says.</p><p>I don't know what I would do if Gabriel really did find someone else. The thought alone makes me feel sick and angry at the same time. Some of the things I've done to him already - maybe I would deserve it.</p><p>"Hey." Gabriel gently bumps my shoulder. "Don't let it get you down. I'm exceptional."</p><p>"Exceptionally annoying, you mean," I say, wishing I could have come up with a better adjective than 'annoying'. Gabriel isn't annoying.</p><p>"For that, I'm going to give you the smallest piece of cake."</p><p>"I told you, I don't even like cake."</p><p>Gabriel looks unimpressed. "You'll like mine."</p><p>I probably will, and I think we both know it. I hope, anyway, that Gabriel knows this. He could cook an old shoe and some tree bark, and if he told me to eat it and tell him it's delicious, I would.</p><p>"Now, quiet, please. The master baker needs to work. Unless you'd like to help?"</p><p>Do I want to leave and spend a few hours by myself, or do I want to spend them with Gabriel? Not exactly a hard question to answer, and I hope he knows that, too. "Fine. I'll help."</p><p>"Thank you, Nathan." Gabriel smiles.</p><p> </p><p>We both end up with flour all over our faces and clothes. I'm pretty sure that's Gabriel's fault, but I'm also pretty sure that if I say so out loud, he'll tell me that actually, it's my fault, because I started it.</p><p>It's lucky there's a lot of flour. Even after our impromptu flour fight, there's still more than enough left for the cake.</p><p>Gabriel measures the ingredients by 'feeling'. He claims he's an experienced enough baker to do so, and who am I to argue? And anyway, it's not like he has any other choice.</p><p>The oven's the next obstacle. It's pretty ancient. No timer or anything like that. The cabin doesn't even have electricity. The oven runs on wood, and good luck figuring out the temperature.</p><p>"This is never going to work," I declare to the world at large.</p><p>Gabriel scoffs. "Negative thinking. It'll work fine. Trust me."</p><p>I would trust Gabriel with my life, but all the trust in the world isn't going to change the fact that, amazingly talented or not, neither of us has a Gift for baking - assuming that even exists, which means there's no way we're going to be able to bake a cake on our first try using the oven.</p><p>The only question is whether we're going to end up burning it to a crisp, or trying to eat it while only half-done. I'm almost confident there's no risk of our accidentally burning down the cabin, so at least there's that. Plus, I had fun. Being near Gabriel, watching him doing something he enjoys ... throwing flour at his face and having flour thrown at me in retaliation ... Gabriel's sharpshooter skills don't seem to make much difference to his ability to hit another person with some flour. Or maybe he wasn't really trying.</p><p>"Come on," he tells me, oven door safely shut. "Let's go to the river to clean up."</p><p> </p><p>We clean up first, then we swim for a bit, while our clothes are drying. Since neither of us has any clothes on, we also end up doing some other things.</p><p>By the time we get back to the cabin, I have zero expectations of cake. It'll have been reduced to ashes by now. I guess I'm sorry Gabriel won't be getting his cake. I know he enjoys sweet, delicious things (and me, who's neither).</p><p>Gabriel insists on checking anyway. "You never know."</p><p>I shrug. I do know. Some things, you don't need to see for yourself to know to be true.</p><p>"I'll make some tea, too - unless you'd rather have coffee?"</p><p>I shrug again. I like coffee with croissants, but since we're not having any croissants, I have no real preference for coffee or tea.</p><p>Gabriel chuckles and kisses my nose. "You're lucky you're cute. And such a sparkling conversationalist, too, of course."</p><p>It's hard to scowl when Gabriel has just kissed my nose and told me he loves me, even if he didn't use those literal words. All the same, I give it a try.</p><p>I can tell I haven't succeeded by the way Gabriel smiles even wider, blowing me a kiss before he leaves to see for himself that there's not going to be any cake to go with our afternoon tea.</p><p> </p><p>Gabriel's still grinning when he comes back, bearing a tray with a tea pot, two cups and two plates. True to his threats, one of the slices of cake is considerably smaller than the other one.</p><p>"Oh ye of little faith." He presents my plate to me with a flourish, like a waiter in some fancy restaurant.</p><p>"Funny. I don't remember us making a chocolate cake," I say, to show I don't plan on letting him get away with absolutely everything. The cake on my plate definitely didn't come out of the cabin's oven. It looks far too good.</p><p>It tastes wonderful, sweet but not too sweet.</p><p>"You must have gotten distracted while you were throwing flour at me," Gabriel says. "Very easy to do."</p><p>"Uh-huh. I'm sure that must be it." I'm sure that's not it at all. I'm sure that when Gabriel went grocery shopping, he brought along a cake as well as eggs and butter. That's probably for the best. If we planned on staying here longer, it might be useful to learn how to use the oven, but as things stand, we'll be gone in another few days anyway, so why bother?</p><p>Our lives are difficult enough as they are. Why not enjoy a bit of ease and luxury when we can?</p><p>"You like it, don't you? Admit it, Nathan. This was a good idea."</p><p>"Well, it was yours," I say. "Doesn't it go without saying that all your ideas are brilliant?"</p><p>"Yes, of course, but I still like to hear it from time to time. Like you saying you love me. Or me saying I love you." Gabriel gives me an adoring look. He's exaggerating, but even so, I can tell he means it. "Which I do. I love you, Nathan. Deeply, madly, and forever, until the day I die."</p><p>I don't want to think about Gabriel ever dying. "I love you, too. Even when you're being ridiculous."</p><p>"Ridiculous? <i>Moi</i>?" Gabriel shakes his head. "Never."</p><p>I laugh, and then I smile, and then I move close enough to kiss him, because I can.</p><p>He tastes like chocolate.</p>
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